THE BENEVOLENT FUND DINNER. 
491 
trade ; tliat a man being “eligible ” bad a positive right to admission, pre¬ 
suming always that there was no disqualifjdng circumstance attaching to 
him which the Court of Queen’s Bench, as well as the Council of the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society, would recognize. 
For the constitution of the Council, we tJiink the concession that chemists 
placed on the register and admitted to membership of the Society, by 
virtue of being in business at the time of the passing of the proposed 
Bill, should, in a certain proportion, be entitled to sit thereon, a wise one. 
The object in barring that privilege, in order to induce all men to come up 
for the higher examination, was justifiable ; but as the limitation of the Council 
to Pharmaceutical Chemists will be effected after the present generation of 
chemists and druggists have passed away, we are reconciled to the now 
proposed arrangement by the great good which we anticipate from the com¬ 
pletion of the original plan proposed by Jacob Bell. 
THE BENEVOLENT FUND DINNEE. 
AVe congratulate our members, and all concerned, on the/hc^ of the gathering 
of the clans. There is too little of the social element amongst those engaged in 
the pursuit of pharmacy. Half our misunderstandings arise because we do not 
know each other, and so seldom meet face to face. There is an illustration 
which would have been worn threadbare, had it not been so good. Two 
brothers climbed up the same mountain steep, but by different routes. As they 
advanced, the deep, white mist rolled over and around them ; and a grim, por¬ 
tentous figure seemed menacing attack. But being bold, and true-hearted 
men, they continued to ascend, until they gained the summit; and no sooner 
did they stand together in the sunshine than each recognized his own brother. 
How many of us during the past few months have done precisely the same 
thing ! AVhat a dowry of lasting friendship, and still better what broader and 
more intelligent thought, have not at least a hundred of us brought home from 
Nottingham ! Nor need we go further back than mention some recent deputa¬ 
tions, when two sides drawn up in apparently hostile array were mutually sur¬ 
prised to find how little real difference lay between them. Still less can we forget 
another meeting, when the dread Salic law of our Society was set at naught, 
and when for once pharmacy was fairly and properly represented by the gentler 
sex. Let us hope for some moral progress in our next conversazione. 
But, pleasantry apart—what a splendid thing it is when a man’s life, that is 
the habitual current of his actions, says Yes to the question, “ Am I my brother’s 
keeper?” Certainly in no case is this fraternal guardianship more requisite 
than in the class of chemists and druggists. Suppose, for an instant, a man 
engaged in large commercial transactions. Everything he does succeeds, and he 
seems to possess that trade alchemy which turns everything he touches into gold. 
All at once, while you are looking at him—without a note of previous warning 
—the morrow after the banquet, v/hile the carriage is at the door to take him to 
the city—crash—all goes^ and he is left penniless in the world. We are not 
speaking either of those dreamy or nefarious speculations of which we may pre¬ 
dict the ruin, but of those accidents of fortune which occur in the order of the 
good providence of God; for has not the highest authority assured us, riches 
make to themselves wings, and fly away ? Such a reverse is thought the cul¬ 
minating point of misery—something worthy of enlisting our very deepest 
sympathy. Yet (without sinking its sorrowful character) it is not the over¬ 
whelming catastrophe supposed. First of all, the man has had his day: 
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